The OP has the diameter already spec'd at 120mm. Does that mean that a specific reflector has already been chosen? Sure would like to hear about it as it will about the biggest differentiater from other thrower lights.

IMHO, a 120mm reflector will look too big for the plunger style! For a plunger, I’d want no bigger than 80mm. In fact, the plastic Rayovac/Energizer/etc. box style lights that are sold in every store have no larger than 3” (~76mm) reflector! If a 120mm reflector is to be used, the plunger light would look absolutely ridiculous! The only way to make the battery tube even remotely proportional looking would be to have all 8 cells side-by-side, and a separate handle. Or, make it with the dual tube design I suggested several posts back. Actually, I just thought of something else that would work. Make it to take 8× 26650 cells!

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Reason is not automatic. Those who deny it cannot be conquered by it. Do not count on them. Leave them alone.
-Ayn Rand

Reflector diameter and head diameter are two different things. There are already 100 mm head diameter lights - Shocker, TN42, TN40, etc. I guess you could argue they look ridiculous, but I don't think so. I agree the EagleTac M25C2 Turbo looks ridiculous at 92mm head diameter but that's because of the single width 18650 battery tube.

A 4 18650 width tube and a nicely designed head with finning at 120mm would be interesting to see - I don't think it would be so bad.

Reflector diameter and head diameter are two different things. There are already 100 mm head diameter lights – Shocker, TN42, TN40, etc. I guess you could argue they look ridiculous, but I don’t think so. I agree the EagleTac M25C2 Turbo looks ridiculous at 92mm head diameter but that’s because of the single width 18650 battery tube.

A 4 18650 width tube and a nicely designed head with finning at 120mm would be interesting to see – I don’t think it would be so bad.

Of course you have your opinion, and I have mine. I’m just imagining the actual size of this thing. The tube won’t be 4 cells wide. If it’s a 4-cell tube, it will be a little wider than two cells. The head size to contain a 120mm reflector would be at least 2.5 times the width of the tube. Overall, the light will look “oversized”. To visualize this: Think of a Courui D01 with double the tube length and added 50% to the head width. It’s just too big – unless you’re over 7 feet tall.

—

Reason is not automatic. Those who deny it cannot be conquered by it. Do not count on them. Leave them alone.
-Ayn Rand

But do remind that a box makes it more compact, if the TN42 was rebuild in box-format, it could be this size:

(perhaps a separate build for a box-shape lightweight 2×18650 parallel 120mm reflector XP-L HI thrower should be considered at some point, but I can not do that on my own. I’m tempted to make that one recoil even)

Why do you hold a flashlight at eye level? I’ve never seen anyone do that. But, you’re going to hold this monster light at eye level? And the difference between a 3-cell tube and a 4-cell tube can literally be less than 5mm of added diameter.

—

Reason is not automatic. Those who deny it cannot be conquered by it. Do not count on them. Leave them alone.
-Ayn Rand

Why do you hold a flashlight at eye level? I’ve never seen anyone do that. But, you’re going to hold this monster light at eye level?

If I am trying to see out past 1000meters, anywhere I can think of in my area will have trees, high grass, corn, small hills, etc in front of me. I will either hold it at my shoulder/eye level, or sometimes raise it high above my head. That’s how I use my Courui when I need it. If I am just going for a stroll, I probably won’t be using this light anyways, but I would have it at my waist.

If TN42 had 25% bigger head it would look even better. The Courui has the perfect proportions for a light, and this BLF MT will have very similar proportions to that! Design wise if it is close to Courui in design, or eve a box design it will be great. Those plungers with narrow handles look horrid. Everything else should be fine.

If TN42 had 25% bigger head it would look even better. The Courui has the perfect proportions for a light, and this BLF MT will have very similar proportions to that! Design wise if it is close to Courui in design, or eve a box design it will be great. Those plungers with narrow handles look horrid. Everything else should be fine.

Agreed, if only my courui was properly modded – sad really, my favourite looking flashlight, and yet since I got my sniper I never use it…………….it’s just so under powered.
I know the project has started with a roughly 120mm reflector – but could you clever guys not just mod a ‘host’ courui and make it actually work like it deserves to?
Seems to me it pretty well ticks most boxes already, it’s just the terrible performance that needs sorting. I know there was an issue with some peoples reflectors, but of course there is no guarantee that ‘any’ bulk bought reflectors will all be good.
Anyway, just an idea

David we understand this is will not have the same appeal as the Q8
For lights with a reflector you say there is ample choice.
This is going to be an extreme flooder surpassing the TN42 at a lower price.
I really hope you will still engage as you did with the Q8 even though you are not liking what it could be looking like

I fear the reflector, driver and LED alone will costs manufacturer more then $40 and we need a lot more material for the housing.

When form factor and LED are choosen we will do a rough calculation to see what this one would cost (as was done with the Q8 bit that was much easier to guess )

David we understand this is will not have the same appeal as the Q8
For lights with a reflector you say there is ample choice.
This is going to be an extreme flooder surpassing the TN42 at a lower price.
I really hope you will still engage as you did with the Q8 even though you are not liking what it could be looking like

I fear the reflector, driver and LED alone will costs manufacturer more then $40 and we need a lot more material for the housing.

When form factor and LED are choosen we will do a rough calculation to see what this one would cost (as was done with the Q8 bit that was much easier to guess )

The Miller, I have a confession to make.

I’m engaging in this conversation even though I don’t even like “throwers” in general! At least not the way guys around here define “thrower”. I’m really just a middle-of-the-road kinda guy when it comes to flashlights. I like Neutral tint. I like a “neutral” spot as well. What I mean by that is that I don’t want a flooder OR a thrower, but something in the middle. If anything, I’d rather it be more thrower than flooder, but that’s all. I don’t have a real use for throwers. I don’t hunt and rarely am in a large enough un-lit area at night to need to see further than say 100 meters or so. I know flooders can easily reach that far, but I don’t like spilling too much light on things to the side, so bringing it in a little makes sense to me.

That being said, I do like to “play around” with lights that can reach out. I have bought lots of zoomies, and I like to see how far the fully-zoomed-in spot can reach. I’ve got a Courui D01 (well, actually, it’s my daughter’s) with a de-domed XM-L2 in it, and the rest of it is stock. It is plenty of “thrower” to me. So, what I’d like to see is the same throw as that, with a wider (to me, more useful) hot-spot. If I had a good quality light with a 120mm or greater reflector, I’d want to put a large emitter in it, like a MT-G2 or XHP-70, or even that Luminus SBT-90 that I’ve got collecting dust in my basement/shop. The balance of throw-vs-flood would be just about right then.

So, you guys can safely disregard everything I say when it comes to designing a BLF mega-thrower.

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Reason is not automatic. Those who deny it cannot be conquered by it. Do not count on them. Leave them alone.
-Ayn Rand

How about slapping a big head on Q8? Everything about that light is already well thought out, we have a relationship with manufacturer and $40 price tag could be kept.

I had suggested this at one point but I think it got lost or maybe it was in the big post that I lost at one point and gave up reposting lol.

This was actually my thinking fromt he start, use the Q8 as the base design since it is already well setup and simply cut it off at the shelf and then make a new head for it.

The bulk of the work is already done. Although we would need to figure out the cell setup, see next reply….

pommie wrote:

Just a quick observation,
there is talk of wanting it to be for 1s, 2s and 4s cell configuration, this would mean the battery tube would have to be made in two parts, one for 1s4p, 2s2p or 4s1p and an extension for 4s2p or 2s4p.
Not a problem design wise but how about cost

Personally I would like a good thrower that I can use, not a pencil beam for bragging

Cheers David

This is something I would like to see as well but it would be hard like you said. The only way you would get 1S is if we either used cell carriers or an extension for the battery tube, which would be nice to have for the Q8 anyways actually. Although alignment would be hard to say the least.

I think that cell carriers would make the most sense. You could run any cell setup you wanted and cost would be minimal, you could simply use a modified version of the multi-cell Q8 tailcap in the cell carriers.

It would cost more naturally but should easily be able to be kept under the goal $100 budget (I think that the total cost could be lower then that if the Q8 was used as the base).

Also, for the record, the CAD designs of the classic style light in the OP are using the correct proportions that a final ~120mm reflector light with a quad cell setup would have. So that gives you an idea on the final look of such a light. I think it looks good personally.

That said I really do like the box style, I just think it would be better utilized with a multi-emitter mega lumen monster setup. 7x+ XHP70’s with 35,000+ lumen and a fan cooled heat sink to actually handle the ~400 watts of power for a reasonable time anyone? Um, yes please.